


Meet Cute

by Dame_Lazarus



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Braime as love language, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Meta, Metafiction, modern au with a twist, r/jaimebrienne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:54:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22612126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dame_Lazarus/pseuds/Dame_Lazarus
Summary: Two active users on a neighborhood watch app meet in real life, and the rest is something out of the golden age of television.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 19
Kudos: 111





	Meet Cute

**Author's Note:**

> This fic brought to you by: people flirting in the comments on the Citizen app, my ambivalence about modern AUs, and too much caffeine on this Friday night.

The alert comes up on her home screen with a loud chime and she’s on her feet. Boots on. Jacket on. Phone. Keys.

_Report of woman assaulted, 300 feet._

Like usual, she can’t believe she’s doing this. It’s the millennial version of ambulance chasing. It’s like when her neighbor growing up would listen to the police scanner in his garage, but taken one crazy step farther, mixing in social media and also reckless danger. But she is doing it. Her feet are moving and she’s out of the apartment and down the stairs and on the street.

She walks 300 feet. Turns off her numbered side street and onto Broadway. It’s two in the morning, on a Tuesday, and a few stragglers are still running about, yelling, but with good cheer. The street lights glow unceasingly orange. Various early 2000s jams blare out of bars that have their doors propped open. The city that never sleeps, at this hour, is like a girls’ sleepover when everyone realizes that no one’s going to make them go to bed: giddy and deranged.

She opens the app. A slogan flashes across the screen: _Stay VIGILANT (tm)._ She selects ‘add user video.’ Then, she hits record.

“I’m now at the site of the alert, Broadway by the Ray’s Tasty Pizza and Burgers Too. No sign of EMS or victim.” She holds the phone out and spins to record a 360-degree view. “Police sirens are audible. Hopefully they are actually on their way to—“

She is interrupted by being forcefully knocked to the ground. Her phone flies out of her hand and skips across the sidewalk, like a flat stone. She grabs her pepper spray keychain, holds it up in the direction of the attacker, and pushes down the button on top.

The man instinctively throws his arms up in front of his face. “Whoa! Holy _shit_! I tripped! I’m sorry!”

Out comes not a spray of mace but a light dribble of searing liquid that runs down her hand and to her wrist. She shakes the can and tries again.

The man peeks out from behind his hands. His eyes are only barely open; he’s still squinting in defense against a possible pepper spray attack and breathing heavily.

“I think it’s empty,” she says weakly.

“Empty?” He drops his hands and just stares at her. “Do you pepper spray a lot of people?”

“Just one or two. It’s a small can!”

“Jesus,” he says. “And I thought the people on the Vigilant app were high-strung. Is that your phone?”

She turns around and scrambles over to pick it up. It turns on easily; the screen protecter is cracked, but otherwise it’s fine. “I _am_ on the Vigilant app.”

“Figures,” he says. “Who else would be out at this hour but criminals and idiots on Vigilant?”

She stands up and brushes the dirt from the sidewalk off her pants. Her hand stings from where she scraped it breaking her fall.The asshole who knocked her over didn’t even offer to help her up. “Are _you_ a criminal, or are you on the Vigilant app?”

He grins. “I’m TheMasterIsIn2.”

Oh. _That_ guy. The one who posts videos for every incident in the goddamn borough. They have great production quality—the framing of each shot is, she has to admit, the best, bar none—andthey each get like 5,000 likes. He starts each video by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen: the master is in.” She rolls her eyes every time.

He looks, too, how someone who calls himself TheMasterIsIn on a neighborhood watch app would look: tousled curly hair under a rumpled knit beanie; those black-rimmed square glasses everyone wears; a graphic tee under a plaid button-up under a hoodie under a puffy bomber jacket. Silver converse. The cocky smile of a guy who knows, under all that nerd gear, he is an attractive man. Overall: annoying.

“So you know my work,” he says, with pride. “What’s your name?”

“TakeBackTheNight.” No numbers on the end required, because the app is mainly full of dudes with usernames like brucewayne69.

He laughs. “Of course it is. But that’s not what I meant. Your real name.”

She hesitates. “Brienne of Tarth.”

“Come on,” he says. “That’s not your real name. That’s a _Game of Thrones_ character!”

“Did you really think I’d give you my real name? You’re a stranger from the internet! What’s _your_ name?”

He purses his lips and doesn’t reply.

“See? You don’t even want to say.”

He smirks. “Fine. I’m Jaime Lannister.”

She rolls her eyes. “Oh, fuck you,” she says. It is too late for this shit. She has to work tomorrow and she didn’t even get a good video. She was going to get roasted in the comments. “Good luck getting your footage or whatever. Try not to trip on anyone else. I’m going to bed.”

***

Two nights later, it is eleven-thirty, and she is walking fruitlessly up and down Broadway, trying to catch a video of another Vigilant incident. _Report of a woman assaulted._ These fuckers will be caught and have their faces broadcast to the internet. These fuckers will be named and shamed. All she wants is a few seconds of the guy responsible, handcuffed in the back of a squad car, chagrined.

“Why, hello there!”

Footsteps pound behind her as someone runs up. She sighs. She already knows who it is.

“What, did someone tell you Sansa Stark was out here?” He falls in time with her quickstrides and grins over at her, irritatingly.

“Go fuck yourself,” she replies.

He just laughs. “So salty! You wound me, my lady.”

A police car whizzes by, its siren screaming into the night.

Not-Jaime suddenly turns and runs after it, without saying a word.

“Ok, bye, then,” she says to the space where he just stood.

 _Go get em TheMasterIsIn2!!!!_ a commenter on the app writes.

***

A woman’s purse is snatched and the suspect is apprehended outside of the neighborhood’s twenty-four hour laundromat, The Lost Sock. She gets there just in time to film the cop cardriving away.

“Better luck next time, Ser Brienne,” Not-Jaime says, turning his phone camera on her.

She flashes him her middle finger.

 _I give her a 6/10_ , some guy comments on Vigilant.

“What the fuck?” she yells at her phone.

Not-Jaime nods sympathetically. “That was pretty harsh. I’d give you at least an eight.”

“That is eighty percent! That’s a B!“

He shrugs. “Better than sixty percent, like that dude said. That’s a D.”

“Thank you.I feel so much better. I’m going to bed.”

“See you next time!” he yells gleefully at her back as she walks home.

***

She wakes up at seven-thirty on a Saturday to the sound of her roommate’s headboard pounding on the wall. She always picks the worst time to have sex.

She puts on her headphones and scrolls through her “Relaxation” playlist to find a song that is both soothing enough to put her back to sleep and loud enough to drown out whatever is going on in the next room. Billie Eilish. Skip. Rilo Kiley. Skip. Brian Eno. Skip. Joanna Newsom. Skip. _This is a shitty relaxation playlist_ , she thinks.

She gives up and logs on to Vigilant. TheMasterIsIn2 had posted a long video in the wee hours of a huge brawl outside Basurero Cantina. Four men and two extremely vocal women are kicking and biting and throwing beer bottles at each other under lights of the restaurant’s garish pink and orange neon sign. A police officer is trying unsuccessfully to separate them. At one point a beer can whacks something behind the camera, and she can hear Not-Jaime swear loudly.

 _Hope you came away with both hands intact_ , she comments, before drifting off.

When she wakes again later in the day, well past lunchtime, she has a notification from the app.

TheMasterIsIn2: _would you like me better if I didn’t?_

She smiles.

***

“I knew you’d be into this sort of thing,” Not-Jaime quips. It’s 1:42 in the morning on a Monday—Tuesday, technically—and they are side by side on the main drag, filming.

They, along with what seems like the rest of the neighborhood, are filming a man standing in the middle of the road. He is wearing only socks. He is holding a giant sword.

“At least he’s wearing something on his feet,” she says. “Kind of cold out here tonight.”

“Yo, _Kingslayer_!” someone yells out their window. The crowd on the street laughs. Not-Jaime turns his head up towards the voice.

“Did you get confused there? Think they were talking to you?” she asks him.

“What can I say? I like to be in character. If you play your cards right, I’ll let you wield my Oathke-“

She smacks him rather forcefully on the arm, jostling his perfect shot. 

_Get a room already_ , someone on the app writes.

The naked sword man suddenly charges the crowd, and they all flee, shrieking.

***

_Report of a woman assaulted, 250 feet._

She films nothing, again.

Not-Jaime is not there. He’s filming a fire on 34th St., mugging for the camera in a very irritating and predictable manner. “The master,” he says, “is in.” Thank God he is on the other side of the neighborhood so she doesn’t have to witness his ridiculous face up close.

It appears that she’s the only one who feels that way. _R u single TheMasterIsIn2??? Asking for a friend lol_

She leaves a eye-roll emoji comment on the video and then goes to sleep.

_The MasterIsIn2 liked your comment._

***

She does it. A woman is assaulted and she gets video of the man as they duck his sorry head into the backseat of the cruiser and drive away. He looks her in the eye and he looks neither feral nor ashamed. He just looks sad.

It’s only ten o’clock, so she goes to The Laughing Sally for a drink. The bar isn’t full, but it isn’t empty; she can be anonymous and not have to make conversation. She orders a can of Genny Cream Ale and sits in a stool next to the window.

She thought she’d feel better. Triumphant. Instead she feels tired. Her video on Vigilant had 280 views and twelve likes before she went up to the bar. She refreshes the screen to see if the stats have changed. More views, but no more likes. She wonders how many of the views are just from her, checking.

Someone knocks on the window.

It’s him, of course. All dazzling smile and chiseled jaw. He saunters inside and seats himself across from her. “Well met, lady knight.”

“Has that joke gotten old yet?”

“Never.” He shucks his coat and places it on the back of the chair, like he’s been invited to stay, which he hasn’t.

“Your video,” he says. “It was great. The pathos! The narrative. I love everything about it.”

“It only got twelve likes.”

“You don’t strike me as being in this for the likes.”

“I’m not,” she protests. “It just would be...nice to know that somebody aside from me cares.”

“I care,” he says. “Really.” He nudges her half-empty beer can. “You need another. To celebrate your kick-ass video!”

Before she can object, he is on his feet, making the blonde bartender giggle as he orders.

She rolls her eyes at him as he struts back over, carrying three cans of beer in his hands. “What?” he says. “I need to catch up with you.”

She takes a sip. “Thank you. Whatever your name is.”

“I told you,” he says. “Jaime Lannister.”

“We both know that isn’t your real name.”

He reaches for his wallet, pulls out his license, and hands it to her.

She bursts out laughing.

“It isn’t funny,” he says darkly.

“At least it’s spelled differently,” she offers, then collapses into giggles again. “Is it Lan-sti-er or Lann-steer?”

He snatches his ID back. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “It might as well be the same. I’ll be lucky if anyone gets it right ever again. Fucking HBO. Do you know how many times TSA agents have asked me if I pay my debts? And last week, at the liquor store, the clerk went into a ten-minute tirade about how wrong it was that he went back to die with Cersei. I don’t give a shit, lady; these are _fictional fucking characters_.”

She reaches into her purse for her wallet. “This might make you feel better,” she says, passing over her own driver’s license.

He picks it up and squints at her name. “That’s not so bad. Kind of hipster.”

“Are you kidding? It’s terrible. It’s not even a family name. Who looks at their baby and thinks, ‘this one is definitely an...’”

“Ethel Magdalene?” he finishes.

She puts her head in her hands. “I go by Maggie.”

“Well,” he says, “it’s nice to meet you, Maggie.”

She looks up and raises her beer can to clink with his.

“Same to you, Jaime,” she replies.

***

“Can I ask you a personal question?” Jaime asks. She is lightly buzzed, sitting at the bar at The Laughing Sally, one shot and one beer in. A man plays a mediocre rendition of “Born to Run” on acoustic guitar in the corner, and even though he sucks, she is humming along. They’ve just finished filming an incident on 43rd Street, a woman bashing in her ex-boyfriend’s windshield and screaming obscenities, and she is basking in the glow of accomplishment.

“Ask away,” she says.

“Every time I see you out, for Vigilant, it’s about a woman,” he says. “Violence against women. A woman scorned. I just wonder...have you...were you...”

“Are you asking if I’ve been the victim of violence? If that’s why I’m so interested in it?”

“It’s just...I started this because I wanted to work on the news. It seems more more personal, for you.”

“I don’t have to have been a victim to take it personally,” she says. “I take it personally for my whole sex. Do you remember when there was that guy going around, hitting women with hammers? I downloaded Vigilant then, to keep up with it. When they finally caught him, it was just an alert and a bunch of relieved commenters. I wanted everyone to know his face.”

“So that’s when it started? That’s the origin story of Ser Ethel Maggie of Tarth, iPhone Vigilante and Protector of Women?”

She shrugs. “I guess. I put a toe in. I started commenting. Then it was like both my feet were in, and then I was wading, and pretty soon it was like I’d always lived in the water.”

He leans forward, conspiratorially. “Is there skinny-dipping in this scenario?”

She rolls her eyes and downs the rest of her beer. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

His face grows serious. He nods.

“Does it bother you that there are two other people with the username TheMasterIsIn? Like, on a scale of one to ten.”

He groans and puts his head down on the bar, but she can see him shaking with laughter.

“You guys are so cute,” the bartender says with a wink as she comes by to collect their empties.

***

He lives alone, in a rent-control apartment across the hall from a yoga studio. “Seven hundred dollars a month is worth hearing them _ohm_ six times a day,” he tells her as they climb the narrow stairway. They’re drunk again. She can’t believe she is doing this. It is a _Thursday_. But she is doing it.

They kissed for the first time outside the bar, in a foggy mist that would have been snow if it was any colder. He was saying goodbye, and she was saying goodbye, but neither of them moved away, and then it was just happening.

They kiss again inside the dark apartment, more seriously and less surprised. She leaves her bag and clothes where they fall. She stays the night. She sleeps naked in his bed.

In the early morning sunlight, she notices a line of figurines across his dresser, next to a belt and a pile of books. They all have squat little round heads and weird armor and swords. “I have to ask you what those are,” she says as he wakes up.

“Oh,” he says, laughing, tucking an arm around her waist, “they’re little Jaime Lannisters. My friend got me one for my birthday every year, for a while. I just decided to roll with it.”

They both call in sick to work, that day. She turns all the figurines to face the wall and they continue to roll with it.

****

After their Thai food arrives, he queues up the video on the TV.

It’s her, on the street, her hair short like it was almost a year ago. She stands in the white light outside of The Lost Sock, waving her middle finger at him.

It’s her, in the crowd, scanning over the tops of heads to catch a shot of the naked guy with the sword.

It’s her, laughing, as he runs ahead toward a mess of flashing blue police lights on the corner.

It’s her, sighing heavily as he approaches her from behind. The shot zooms in a little too close on her backside.

“That’s my favorite one,” he whispers. He ducks as she reaches out to smack him.

It’s them, laying in bed. He’s fast asleep, sprawled out over her chest, arms stretched out on either side, pinning her down. She’s holding up the phone in the faintly orange light of a night in the city. “You can’t help who you love,” she says into the camera. “Unfortunately.”

The video ends after that, but they don’t notice. They’ve become much less vigilant, of late.

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged this r/jaimebrienne because I wrote about an incident on Citizen where someone was wielding a sword and said someone should make it a fanfic. Apparently, that someone is me.


End file.
